Sandgrounders frozen out of FA Trophy by Alfreton

THIS FA Trophy tie got going at the second time of asking after being frozen off last weekend.

But it was a tale of winter woe for the Sandgrounders, who can now concentrate on chasing promotion from the Blue Square North.

The Port got caught cold at the Impact Arena and tumbled out of this season’s FA Trophy, a decade after gracing Wembley.

The Impact Stadium and its rolled, sludgy mud was a million miles from what will be the May final.

But to earn that right, teams have to overcome such adversity. On Tuesday night, Port boss Peter Davenport was quick to identify that his charges were out-muscled in those difficult conditions.

The alarm bells were ringing right from the start, with Alfreton forcing four flighted right wing corners before five minutes had elapsed.

Southport failed to settle and it proved fatally, decisive.

Alfreton’s 10th minute winner was a wonder goal, but Southport were culpable, standing off to allow the execution.

Josh Law on the right, cutting inside, found big centre forward Brian Cusworth, who chested the ball before crashing a fantastic volley into the top left hand corner from 16-yards.

Port keeper Richard Whiteside was simply left planted to the ground.

Neil Robinson, on 17 minutes, fired straight at Phil Senior and, sadly, that was the sum total of the Sandgrounders first half goal efforts.

Alfreton played a direct, ‘pump it into the corners’ tactic with an impressive work rate, snapping and closing down the midfield. Southport were without the experienced knowledge of the suspended Matt Hocking, plus the injured Chris Holland, and it told throughout the tie.

In the frenetic early stages, Alfreton’s Danny Reet also beat Whiteside from distance but this time the left hand stanchion rescued the Port.

Alfreton, a form Blue Square North side at present, imposed themselves and threw in several brutal tackles that were leniently treated by the referee in this physical tie.

Peter Davenport rallied his players at half time but until right at the death, they did not look like scoring.

On 55 minutes, Paul Barratt’s raid down the left appeared to open up the home defence, with Neil Prince seeing his angled shot skidding across the goal line with no Port player gambling with a follow up.

Late on, the Port pressurised the home goal with Kevin Lee agonisingly heading wide from close range from a Mark Duffy left wing centre.

Peter Davenport said “We weren’t strong enough. We did not create. We knew it was going to be a battle.

“You look for your flair players to contribute and they didn’t. One or two of their players were very fortunate still to be on the pitch at the end.

“If we had got a draw it would have been a great result. We certainly attacked all the second half and they were content to try and catch us on the break. But we lacked the quality. I am very disappointed to go out of the FA Trophy at such an early stage. We will need to bounce back at Stalybridge on Saturday.”